Pinwall



UNITED ,TAfrEs Erica.-

GARLAND N. WHISTLER, OF FOR'LWADSWORTH, A D HENRY o. AsPiN- WALL, OF WEST NEW BRIGHTON, ASSIGNORS, BY MEs'NE ASSIGNMENTS, TO BENJAMIN s. HARMON, on NEW YORK, N. Y.

SMOKELESS GUNPOWDER.

SFEGIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 541,910, dated July 2, 1895..

' Aur ica i n fil October 23, 1894. Serial No. 528.735. (N p im n -l To all whom it ma concern:

Be it known that we, GARLAND N. Wursr LEE, of Fort Wadsworth, and HENRY 0. As- PINWALL, of West New Brighton, in the county of Richmond andState of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Smokeless Gunpowder, of which the tonate and isa good propellant. 4-

following is a specification.

Our invention relates to an improvement in smokeless gun powder in which the relative proportionsof gun cotton and nitroglycerin may be varied within broad limits, at will without materially affecting the propelling efnciency of the powder.

Smokeless powder, considered sense as an explosive, may be used either as a mining powder or as a gun powder. Its value as a mining powder depends simply upon the amount of gas developed and the temperature of explosion and is entirely independent of the rate of combustion. When used as a gun powder or propellant to propel a. projectilethrough the bore of a gun, the object is to obtain the greatest velocity with the least strain upon the gun. The character of the pressure produced in the bore of agun is dependent upon the rate of combustion of the powder. The propellant efiiciency of a powder is therefore a result not only of the forceof the powder but also of therate of combustion.

The rate of combustion of nitroglycerin, so long as it does not detonate is peculiarly suit able for propelling purposes, whereas the rate of'burning of gun cotton is too rapid and produces too great ,pressure. A mixture of these .two explosives in certain proportions produces a safe compound which will not de- The greater the amount of nitroglycerin, the more suitable will be the rate of combustion. In order, however, to obtain the most efficient propellant that thecompound will produce, it is necessary to use an excessive amount of nitroglycerin; which is not only dangerous,but in consequence of nitroglycerin being a liquid, the grain produced by the combination is too soft for practical use in the gun. The decrease of the relative proportion of nitroglycerin, as compared with the gun cotton hardens the grainand renders it better suited in its broad for the purpose of a gun powder, but at the same time decreases the efficiency of the gun powder as a propellant.

,Our invention consists in combining with the gun cotton and the nitroglycerin from forty per cent. to fifty per cent. of the weight of gun cotton of some nitrate, such for example-as barium nitrate, thereby rendering the rate of combustion of the gun cotton similar .to that of the nitroglycerin and hence rendering itfeasible to vary the relative proportions of gun cotton and nitroglycerin at will, without materially affecting the propellant efficiency of the powder. The gun cotton re ferred to is in the form known as t-riuitrocellulose.

We have demonstrated in practice that a powder composed of one hundred and fifty parts of nitroglycerin; fifty parts trinitrooellulose, twenty-two and one-half parts of ,ba riurn nitrate and two and one-half parts of urea crystals, gives the projectile in the United States thirty caliber rille a velocity of about two thousand two hundred and fifty feet per second with a maximum pressure of thirty-eight thousand pounds persquare inch. Asecond powder consisting of seventy-five parts of nitroglycerin, fifty parts of trinitrocellulose, twenty parts of barium nitrate and two parts of urea crystals give, 'in the same forty-five per cent. of the trinitrocellulose and in the lattercase about forty per cent.of

the gun cotton, and His probable that fur ther experience will show that the percentage of the barium nitrate may be varied slightly between these two per cents. as the proportion of nitroglycerin is decreased. It isof the highest importance, however, to observe that in the second instance the amount of nitroglycerin was only half as much again as the amount of trinitrocellulose, while, in the first instance, it was three times as much, and yet the propellent efficiency was about the same in both cases, varying only a few feet. We have shown therefore that, by the addition of a proportion ofa salt, rich in oxygen, to the trinitrocellulose and nitroglycerin,

We can; vary the proportions of the two exploeives, nitroglycerin and trinitrocellulose, at

will, without affecting; the propellant effi-l erioe, trlnitrocelluloso, a nitrate antl a, neutralizer of free acid, such for example as urea crystals, the proportion of nitrate tothe trloitrocellulose being aboutforty-fiv'e parts'ofnitrapet'o one hundred parts of trinitro'cl lulose, so that the combustion of the gun cotton shall be substantially similar to that of the nitr 0-' glycerin, as set forth. 4 I I GARLAND N. 'WHISTLER.

HENRY G. ASPYNNAIL. Witnesses: H IRENE l3. DECKER,

'FREDK. HAYNES. 

